Palen Music Center Quick Note

Monday, January 4, 2010

The PMC Quick Note is a service provided to all area directors. It is part of our mission to support the lives of band directors across the Midwest. The Quick Note contains helpful tips and suggestions from area directors, spotlights on area college and university band programs, calendars of upcoming events, advocacy articles promoting music education, links to helpful web resources, and much more.  Comments, suggestions, ideas, and articles are always welcome.

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U.S. Department of Education data show that students who report consistently high levels of involvement in instrumental music during the middle- and high-school years show “significantly higher levels of mathematics proficiency by grade 12.”

-- James Catterall, Richard Chapleau, and John Iwanaga, “Involvement in the Arts and Human Development,” 1999

Crimson Corps adopt families for Christmas
This article was written by Director of Bands Craig Finger and appeared in the NixaXpress. We are proud to reprint it in this week's Quick Note. Way to go Mr. Finger and the Nixa Band!

For the past 13 years the high school band has adopted a family at Christmas. As a program that is funded by community support, either through taxes or donations to the boosters, I feel it is important to give back to society. In addition, I think one of the greatest things a person can do is to be generous, either with their time or their money.

The students of the band program donated around $950 towards the family and after they collected around $700 at our Christmas concert from the audience, they decided to take on an additional family. They purchased some typical toys but also some bigger items that will make the kids' and parents' Christmas morning special such as two bikes, a basketball goal and a crib. In addition, they were also able to take care of some items of necessity such as diapers and clothes.

The gifts were delivered last Friday and you could tell that the families were very appreciative and we only wish that we could see the reaction of the kids on Christmas morning! I was really proud of the kids for their time and support of this project. It started off slow but then they seemed to really take flight with it.  Hopefully they learned something about helping others.

What I am most proud of is that this is a student-lead process. I planted the original idea years ago and try to ask a student who I feel would be a good leader to organize it each year, and of course I have to talk about looking beyond yourself into the needs of others.

But the students are the ones that collect the money, contact Least of These, contact the families, do the shopping and wrap the gifts. We have many students at the high school that are generous towards others that don’t get much recognition for it, which obviously isn’t the main point, but it is nice.

A few of the other groups that I know of that are doing kind things are the French Club who adopted a family for Christmas, the Helping Hands Club which organized a toy drive at a recent high school event and the Green Team who is constantly working to help save some resources at our school. I am sure there are more but that is just the ones that come to mind.

There are some great kids REALLY doing some great work here at the high school that aren’t in the mainstream activities. It is fun to watch them and learn from their kindness.